Home » Covid, here’s what to eat when you lose taste and smell

Covid, here’s what to eat when you lose taste and smell

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The disgust for cooked meat or vegetables, the pleasure for all that is crunchy, spicy and savory. Those who deal with the loss of taste (ageusia) and smell (anosmia) due to Covid-19 have radically changed the way they shop. Less steaks and aubergines, more muesli and fennel, then lots of spices, aged cheeses, mustard and ice cream. Virtue is made of necessity, because eating must remain a pleasure, especially if the olfactory dysfunction lasts for weeks or months.

“When we talk about the sense of taste, we are talking about chemical sensations received by the taste cells that are translated into flavors, therefore sweet, salty, bitter, acid and savory”, he says Michela Crippa, a teacher of gastronomic sciences and food technologies, but above all a professional taster who, in March 2020, losing taste and smell due to the coronavirus, started a series of training to learn how to recover the two senses and to make dishes for those who “feel” little. “The sense of smell, on the other hand, arises from volatile molecules that reach the olfactory epithelium through the nostrils, from which we intercept the scents, and through the retronasal way, after swallowing and chewing food, which in symbiosis with the taste creates what we call aroma “.

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The three phases of olfactory dysfunction

Thanks to the training, Crippa and colleagues have collected the testimony of about a thousand people, identifying three phases of olfactory dysfunction from Covid-19. “For the first twenty days or so, anosmia accompanied by ageusia prevails”, explains Crippa, “then the taste returns, leaving room for cacosmia, that is to say the perception of an unpleasant, often ghostly odor. In my case, cooked cabbage or burnt plastic ”. The third phase, on the other hand, would be parosmia, which many people are experiencing as a symptom of long Covid, “that is an alteration of the sense of smell, where some aromas usually considered pleasant, are perceived very strong, so as to be disgusting, or totally different “. There are those who approach vanilla with the smell of sewage, for example, those who peach with the aroma of basil.

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Few seasonal ingredients on the plate

The first suggestion is to build simple dishes, respecting the single product as much as possible. “If we mix many ingredients, the mixture of aromatic components that reaches the olfactory bulb can be decoded with more difficulty or incorrectly” continues the gastronome. Second advice, choose seasonal foods at the peak of their ripeness and flavor. Third, focus on chemesthetic perceptions, sensory experiences that involve other receptors, which can be activated both by temperature (cool or hot), and by substances contained in food, for example the capsaicin in chilli that causes spiciness.

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Spicy and spicy foods

“Spices, such as Sichuan pepper or chilli, but also ginger, mustard or mint contain compounds that act not only on the taste cells or the olfactory bulb, but also on the tactile nerves,” says Crippa. “So they irritate the tongue and create fresh, tingling or burning sensations, which, when there is no taste and smell, are extremely pleasant”. This is why they like all pungent and aromatic products, including aged or refined cheeses.

Crunchy, hot or cold foods

To make the difference, even the consistency and the temperature. “Overcooked pasta or boiled vegetables are not pleasant, while everything that is crunchy is best enjoyed, such as fennel, carrots, iceberg salad, macaroni al dente or toast”, suggests Crippa, “inspiring me to the summer-winter soup of Gualtiero Marchesi, I recommend cooking the vegetables (carrots, zucchini, cauliflower) in a pan or in the oven, to leave them crunchy, and then serve them with a tomato and pecorino gazpacho, or, in winter, with a spiced meat broth and parmesan “. Ice cream is also satisfying. Thanks to its fat molecules which, like vectors, transport and help spread odorous sensations in the oral and nasal cavity. In fact, as soon as you bite into an ice cream, says the expert, “you can taste the thermal shock between cold and heat in the mouth and odorous molecules are released, especially via the back of the nose”.

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Foods don’t

The aromas perceived as disgusting vary from person to person, but in general “the biggest problems are with foods that contain sulfur or nitrogen complexes, therefore meat, onion and garlic. Furthermore, we have noticed that even processed products, such as carbonated drinks, biscuits and industrial snacks, are not very popular. Perhaps – concludes the gastronome – for the mix of ingredients and food additives ”.

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